"Where has she gone?" By: Shadowkat678 ____________________ When you were younger they had called it beautiful, the openness of your heart, but now they only call it näive. All you had ever wished for in life was to find some trace of good, to discover more than the pain and violence surrounding the people you loved day after day. You wanted more, more from others, to believe in them like you wished to be believed in. Those were eyes that saw in a full spectrum of color, and a mind that lived in a world of endless possibilities...but they've destroyed you now, the very ones you so longed to show that wonderful beauty they were all tragically blinded from. Now the world's only color is a dull gray, the only feeling the cold as bitter as ice. There are no more brilliant sunsets to watch, and no more warmth to be felt. Do you remember those times, as children, when we'd rush out at nightfall to catch fireflies in our cupped hands? Your face was always so alive back then, so full of wonder and innocence and magic and joy that could hardly be explained. You'd dance gleefully under the stars to music your ears alone could hear, your soft voice filling the warm summer nights with songs and bell-like laughter. Now that face has fallen, your once twinkling eyes dull and hopeless behind the curtain of hair used to hide the tears streaming down your pale cheeks. Years ago, you had wrapped yourself in a blanket of stories, fantastic fantasies to help keep you afloat in a world of stormy seas. Yet, day by day, the raft your fantasies provided you grew harder and harder to grip, until that final moment that it was wretched from your grasp entirely, and you were left to drown beneath the crashing waves. Now you've been forced into a role you'd never wanted to play: the role of reality. They made you see the hate that you had hidden away from yourself for so long, shattering the mask of innocence you once wore. Now, you can only carry the pain, the anger and bitterness of the world you've been dropped helplessly into. No longer are you free, for they've shackled you with cold truth. Fairytales can no longer save you, and everyday the hollow emptiness in your chest only grows larger. Where did she go, the child of wondrous fantasies and adventure and light? Where did she go, the girl that soared as high and strong as the proud dragons she so dreamed of riding, the one that ran gracefully as far as the far off lands she longed to roam? Alas, she's gone...you're gone. They've doused the last light as far as can be seen, and now all that's left is a void of shadowy hands dragging you farther and farther down into depths of endless darkness. There are no more candles that could relight that once raging fire in your heart, because they too have all burnt out. Where did I go, I wonder? For you were me, once upon a time. If only we could find where that sweet little child has run to, the one who danced with the brightest of stars at her side, barefoot under the silver moonlight as wet dew dampened her skin and green grass tickled her feet, her smile brighter than any light in the heavens...if we could only find that child, could we become her once again? No, for she only was a dream, wasn't she? Only a dream in a land of horrid nightmares. Now she's lost once and for all, and there will be no more dreams in this sleepless night, only crushing despair. She won't be coming back for either of us, and so now we're both left here alone... _____________________ A/N: I don't know, it feels like no one is how they used to be. I feel like I'm constantly clinging to imaginary stories and things, because I'm afraid that when I let go I'll drown. Maybe everyone feels like this, maybe it's just me. But there are nights I feel like my grip is slipping, little by little. I'm afraid, and after watching so many fall, I'm scared to be next...